this will not work with all form elements - and will (as usual) not work in Netscape - but fine in IE 4&5 -
trap to avoid - you may need to do 2 style sheets 1 for NS 1 for IE and then do a bit of browser sniffing and doc.write the CSS dependant on the browser - I posted the textarea example as it gives the greatest problems in netscape - but you can use similar code for input , select etc